
Class h A -3 4 K 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE PRINTING TRADES 



THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE 
CLEVELAND FOUNDATION 

Charles E. Adams, Chairman 

Thomas G. Fitzsimons 

Myrta L. Jones 

Bascom Little 

Victor W. Sincere 



Arthur D. Baldwin, Secretary 

James R. Garfield, Counsel 

Allen T. Burns, Director 



THE EDUCATION SURVEY 
Leonard P. Ayres, Director 



CLEVELAND EDUCATION SURVEY 

THE PRINTING TRADES 



BY 

FRANK L. SHAW 




THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE 

CLEVELAND FOUNDATION 

CLEVELAND - OHIO 



16 



1916 



' 



% 






Copyright, 1916, by 

the survey committee of the 
cleveland foundation 




APR I3ISI6 



WM ! - P. FELL CO- PRINTERS 



PHILADELPHIA 



©CI.A427648 



">** / 



FOREWORD 

This report on "The Printing Trades" is one of 
the 25 sections of the report of the Education 
Survey of Cleveland conducted by the Survey 
Committee of the Cleveland Foundation in 1915. 
Twenty-three of these sections will be published 
as separate monographs. In addition there will 
be a larger volume giving a summary of the find- 
ings and recommendations relating to the regular 
work of the public schools, and a second similar 
volume giving the summary of those sections re- 
lating to industrial education. Copies of all 
these publications may be obtained from the 
Cleveland Foundation. They may also be ob- 
tained from the Division of Education of the 
Russell Sage Foundation, New York City. A 
complete list will be found in the back of this 
volume, together with prices. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword 5 

List of Tables 9 

List of Diagrams 10 

List of Illustrations 10 

CHAPTBB 

I. The Printing Industry 11 

Size of industry 13 

Many small establishments 14 

Mostly native workers 15 

Union organization 16 

Earnings 16 

Regularity of employment 19 

Subdivisions of the industry 21 

Summary 22 

II. The Composing-Room 25 

Machine operators 26 

Proof-readers 28 

Stonemen or make-up men 28 

Number employed 29 

Union organization 29 

Wages 30 

Health conditions 32 

Apprenticeship 33 

Summary 36 

III. The Pressroom 37 

Cylinder and platen pressmen 39 

Web pressmen 40 



Plate printers 


40 


Platen and cylinder pressfeeders 


41 


Other occupations 


41 


Number employed 


42 


Wages 


42 


Health conditions and accident risks 


44 


Learning the trade 


44 


Summary 


45 


IV. The Bindery 


47 


Occupations of women employees 


47 


Occupations in which men predominate 


49 


Number employed 


51 


Wages and working conditions 


51 


Summary 


53 


V. Plate-Making and Lithography 


54 


Photo-engraving 


54 


Stereotyping 


57 


Electrotyping 


58 


Lithographing 


60 


Summary 


63 


VI. Training Before the Boy Leaves School 65 


The elementary school 


65 


The junior high school 


69 


A general industrial course 


71 


A two-year vocational course needed 


76 


Summary 


84 


VII. Training for Apprentices and Journey- 




men 


85 


Apprentices 


85 


Journeymen 


92 


Summary 


94 



LIST OF TABLES 

TABLE PAGE 

1. Estimated number of wage-earners in each 

department of the printing industry 22 

2. Average daily earnings of job and newspaper 

composing-room workers 31 

3. Union scale per hour for compositors and 

other skilled factory workers 32 

4. Average daily earnings of pressroom workers 43 

5. Union scale per hour in various pressroom 

occupations 43 

6. Average daily earnings of bindery workers 52 

7. Average daily earnings in photo-engraving 

occupations 56 

8. Average daily earnings in electrotyping occu- 

pations 59 

9. Average daily earnings in lithographic print- 

ing occupations 62 



LIST OF DIAGRAMS 

DIAGRAM PAGE 

1. Weekly wages of men in the printing industry 

and in five other industries 17 

2. Weekly wages of women in the printing indus- 

try and in six other industries 18 

3. Unemployment of men in the printing and in 

building trades for each month during the 
year 20 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

A giant web press used by a local newspaper 

Frontispiece' 
A corner in an up-to-date composing-room in a 

job shop 26 * 
Stonemen preparing forms 32 y 
One type of cylinder press 40 "' 
View of cutting machines 44 
A Cleveland bindery 48" 
Folding and stitching machines in a bindery 52 
A photo-engraving department 54 1 ' 
Stereotyping 58^ 
Lithographic poster work in Cleveland 62" 
Composing-room of a large Cleveland news- 
paper plant 68 



THE PRINTING TRADES 

CHAPTER I 
THE PRINTING INDUSTRY 

Few stories of industrial history are more inter- 
esting than that of the rise and development of 
the art of printing. A thousand years ago the 
Chinese did printing by engraving letters on 
blocks of wood, coating the surface with ink, 
placing a sheet of paper on this inked surface and 
then rubbing or tapping it until a satisfactory 
impression was secured. For nearly 500 years 
little improvement was made over this method. 
Then, about 1450, Gutenberg invented the first 
printing press and the first movable type. The 
press was made of wood and the type cast from 
lead. The printing itself was a slow and simple 
process. There was a bed or table which held the 
type. After these type were set and inked by 
hand, a piece of paper was carefully placed in 
position on them and the movable bed was 
pushed back under a flat block of wood which 
was then forced down by means of a ponderous 
wooden screw. This pressed the paper against 

11 



the type which did the actual printing. The 
product of the press was about 50 sheets an hour. 

During the 350 years which elapsed from the 
days of Gutenberg to the year 1800, only minor 
improvements were made in the mechanical side 
of printing. In the early years of the 19th cen- 
tury the cylinder press was perfected. This was 
a revolutionary development. Instead of the 
paper being pressed against the type by means 
of a block forced downward by a screw or lever 
it was now placed on the face of a revolving 
cylinder and rolled against the type. By this 
method printing was done much more rapidly 
than had previously been possible and the new 
invention rapidly displaced the old-style presses. 
It is interesting to note that while we still speak 
of the printing press, the fact is that it would be 
more accurate if we were to speak of many of the 
present-day printing machines as printing rollers 
instead of printing presses. 

During the past half century the develop- 
ments in the art of printing have succeeded one 
another with such rapidity that the whole indus- 
try has been revolutionized. The cylinder press, 
in which the paper was applied to the face of a 
revolving cylinder, was soon followed by the 
rotary press which consists in principle of two 
large revolving cylinders, one carrying the paper 
and the other carrying the plates that do the 

12 



actual printing. Much modern printing where 
speed is required is done with presses of this sort. 
These machines have been improved until they 
are marvels of mechanical perfection. By their 
use newspapers and magazines are now printed 
in several colors, folded, and pasted at a speed 
as high as 75,000 an hour by one machine. 

The developments of the last half century 
have been not confined to the printing presses. 
During that period zinc etching has made possi- 
ble the cheap and rapid printing of illustrations 
and the half-tone process has been invented for 
making fine reproductions of photographs. More- 
over, in the past 30 years typesetting machines 
have been perfected. These various develop- 
ments are merely some of the most important 
ones that have remade the printing industry in 
the past half century. In that time almost every 
process of making type, setting type, printing, 
and making illustrations has gone through a 
series of successive improvements each one of 
which has been so important as to render the 
earlier method obsolete. 



Size of the Industry 
In the United States there were, in 1909, about 
35,000 printing establishments, employing in all 
more than 400,000 people. On the basis of total 

13 



value of product, printing ranked sixth among 
the manufacturing industries of the country with 
a total output in 1909 of $737,000,000. 

A smaller proportion of the industrial popu- 
lation of Cleveland is engaged in printing than in 
most large cities. The number of persons em- 
ployed in printing occupations in 1915 is esti- 
mated at approximately 3,900, made up chiefly 
of skilled workmen. Little common labor is em- 
ployed in any department of the industry. The 
annual output — more than $10,000,000 is ex- 
ceeded by only six manufacturing industries, and 
only four employ a greater number of wage- 
earners. 



Many Small Establishments 
The printing industry is essentially a business of 
small establishments. In 1909 there were 1,665 
separate printing establishments in Ohio, of 
which approximately 20 per cent were " one- 
man' ' shops, employing no wage-earners, about 
50 per cent employed from one to five wage- 
earners each, and less than 10 per cent had an 
average working force of more than 20 wage- 
earners. 

The average manufacturing unit is smaller 
than in other leading factory industries. There 
are not more than 10 printing plants in the city 

14 



which employ over 75 wage-earners. Data col- 
lected by the Survey Staff from 44 local printing 
shops showed an average working force of only 
36 persons. The Census of Manufactures for 
1909 gives an average of 13 wage-earners per 
establishment for the entire industry in Cleve- 
land. 

Due largely to these conditions, printing af- 
fords an unusual number of opportunities for 
advancement to the skilled workers in the indus- 
try. The smaller the establishments are, the 
greater is the proportion of proprietors, super- 
intendents, managers, and foremen to the total 
number of wage-earners. Ten per cent of the 
total working force in the printing industry is 
employed in supervisory and directive positions. 
In many of the large industries of the city the 
proportion in such work is less than three per 
cent. 

Mostly Native Workers 
No other manufacturing industry in the city em- 
ploys so large a proportion of American-born 
workers. In recent years many of the skilled 
industrial trades have been recruited, to a very 
large extent, from foreign labor, but so far the 
American worker has held his own remarkably 
well in the printing industry. This is due partly 
to the maintenance of relatively high wages and 

15 



desirable working conditions, and partly to the 
necessity, in all branches of printing, for a work- 
ing knowledge of English. 



Union Organization 
Practically all of the trades are thoroughly or- 
ganized. There is a compositors' union, a press- 
men's union, a pressfeeders' union, an electro- 
typers' union, a photo-engravers' union, a poster 
artists' union, and so on, through all the trades. 
The unions are united in a body called the Coun- 
cil of the Allied Printing Trades. Although only 
about half of the shops in the city employ union 
labor exclusively, union regulations as to wages 
and hours are observed in both open and closed 
shops. The strength of union organization 
throughout the trades is largely responsible for 
the high wages, short hours, and good working 
conditions which prevail in the industry. 



Earnings 
Printing workers are among the best paid indus- 
trial wage-earners in the city. The hourly wage 
scale in many building occupations is higher 
than in the skilled printing trades, but the build- 
ing worker loses more time through unemploy- 
ment and therefore probably earns less per year 

16 



on the average than the printer. A comparison 
of weekly earnings in the various manufacturing 
industries of the city is shown in Diagram 1. 
This comparison is based upon the 1914 report 



Building construction 




Diagram 1. — Number of men in each 100 in printing and five 
other industries earning each class of weekly wage. Black in- 
dicates less than $18, hatching, $18 to $25, and outline $25 
and over 



of the Ohio Industrial Commission. The data 

are for Cuyahoga County, but the returns for 

the city, if they could be separated, would show 

little variation from the figures given, since 
2 17 



about nine-tenths of the population of the 
county reside in Cleveland. 

The diagram shows in a striking way the rela- 
tively high position of the printing trades from 



Men* sclo thing factories 




Gas and electric fixture establishments 
51J 




Diagram 2. — Number of women in each 100 in printing and 
six other industries earning each class of weekly wage. Black 
indicates less than $8, hatching $8 to $12, and outline $12 and 
over 

the standpoint of financial reward. The percent- 
age earning good wages is higher than in any of 
the other industries compared, except in building 

18 



construction. Only about one-half as many em- 
ployees in automobile factories earn $25.00 a 
week or over as in the printing industry, one- 
third as many in steel works and rolling mills, 
and about one-eighth as many in foundries and 
machine shops. 

The comparison made in Diagram 2 of the 
earnings of women in various industries is less 
favorable to printing. On the basis of the pro- 
portion of women that earn $12.00 and over per 
week, this industry takes third place. It should 
be noted, however, that nearly all the women 
employed are engaged in semi-skilled work in 
binderies — a lower grade of work than that done 
by most women workers in clothing factories, 
where wages are higher. Compared with other 
occupations that require about the same amount 
of experience and training, in textile, tobacco, 
and confectionery manufacturing establishments 
the wages of women employed in printing are 
relatively high. 



Regularity of Employment 
Wage-earners in printing establishments lose 
less time through irregularity of employment 
than do those in most factory industries. Of 
the six leading manufacturing industries in the 
city, printing shows the least fluctuation in the 

19 



size of the working force. The kind of work 
done by women is more seasonal than that done 
by men, although less so than in other manu- 
facturing industries which employ large num- 
bers of women. Diagram 3 shows the fluctua- 
tion during 1914 in the size of the working forces 



100 
90 
80 
70 
60 
50 
40 
30 
20 
10 



Diagram 3. — Percentage of men in the building trades and in 
the printing trades employed each month during the year. The 
largest number in any one month is taken as the base and is 
represented by 100 per cent 



Sep. 


Oct. 


Nov. 


Dac. 


Jan. 


Feb. 


Mar. 


Apr. 


May 


June 


July 


Aug. 














97 


100 


too 


— 99- 


«9» 




loo ' 


"~ 7 \ 


9/ 


90^, 


9g„ 


96 _ 








"$ 


9* ""— 9.4 


-**- 


—1±- 


\ 










A* 


• ~QO 












\ 


\ 






/ 


t 
















6 r 


' l&\ 




/» 




















1 


\ / 


t 






















*.? 




















































Printing trade* 
Building trades — — — — 









































in the printing industry and the building in- 
dustry. In each case the number in each industry 
during the months of greatest employment is 
represented by 100 per cent. It is noteworthy 
that in the case of printing the minimum num- 
ber employed in any month never falls below 

20 



90 per cent of the maximum number. In the 
building trades, on the other hand the fluctua- 
tions of employment are so serious that the mini- 
mum number falls to less than half of the maxi- 
mum number. 



Subdivisions of the Industry 
There have been great changes since the days of 
Benjamin Franklin when the printer set the 
type, read the proof, ran the press, and bound 
the printed sheets into the finished volume. 
With the growth in the size of printing establish- 
ments and the introduction of modern machin- 
ery, the different processes have been divided 
and subdivided until today the printed book or 
magazine represents the work of more than 50 
skilled trades, grouped in seven subdivisions of 
the industry. The distribution of the workers 
in these seven departments, with the estimated 
number in the city employed in each depart- 
ment, is shown in Table 1. 

Very rarely are all these departments found in 
a single establishment. The average job-print- 
ing shop is made up of a composing-room, a 
pressroom, and a bindery. The large newspaper 
plant consists of a composing-room, a press- 
room, and electrotyping, stereotyping, and 
photo-engraving departments. Some plants 
21 



specialize in bindery work, others in the manu- 
facture of printing plates. As a rule each firm 
tries to excel in a particular line of work in order 
to secure the monopoly value of a " specialty.' ' 

TABLE 1.— ESTIMATED NUMBER OF WAGE-EARNERS EM- 
PLOYED IN EACH DEPARTMENT OF THE PRINTING INDUS- 
TRY, CLEVELAND, 1915 



Department 


Men 


Women 


Total 


Composing-room 

Pressroom 

Binding 

Lithographing 

Electrotyping 

Photo-engraving 

Stereotyping 


1,150 

1,068 

390 

410 

108 

96 

40 


53 

98 

462 


1,203 

1,166 

852 

410 

108 

96 

40 


Total 


3,262 


613 


3,875 



The workers do not commonly shift from one 
department of the industry to another, or from 
trade to trade. Men who learn their trade in 
job establishments sometimes change to news- 
paper work, or vice versa, but such shifts are 
now less frequent than they were formerly. 
Modern conditions tend constantly towards a 
sharper definition and limitation of work in each 
trade. 



Summary 
The art of printing was brought into being about 
a thousand years ago by the Chinese. The 
founder of the modern printing industry was 

22 



Gutenberg who invented movable type and the 
first printing press about 1450. During the past 
half century almost every process of making 
type, setting type, printing, and making illus- 
trations has gone through a series of successive 
improvements, each one of which has been so 
important as to render the earlier method obso- 
lete. 

Printing ranks among the six leading indus- 
tries in Cleveland as well as in the United States 
as a whole. It is essentially a business of num- 
erous small establishments. While there are 
about 4,000 people engaged in printing in Cleve- 
land, there are not more than 10 establishments 
in the city employing over 75 wage-earners each. 

Most of the people employed in the industry 
are skilled workmen. There is little common 
labor employed in any department. More than 
five-sixths of the employees are men and no 
other manufacturing industry employs so large 
a proportion of American-born workers. The 
industry is highly unionized. 

There is more opportunity for advancement in 
printing than in most other industries because 
there is a greater proportion of proprietors, super- 
intendents, managers, and foremen. Printers 
are among the best paid industrial wage-earners. 
Their hourly rates are high and the wage- 
earners lose less time through irregularity of 

23 



employment than do those in most factory 
industries. 

Printing is a highly specialized and subdivided 
industry. It is not a trade but a group of some 
50 skilled trades divided among seven principal 
departments of the industry. The workers sel- 
dom shift from one department to another or 
from trade to trade. 



24 



CHAPTER II 
THE COMPOSING-ROOM 

Until about 30 years ago, before practical type- 
setting machines were invented, all type was 
set by hand. Today, the hand-compositor, ex- 
cept in very small shops, works only on jobs re- 
quiring special type or special arrangement, 
such as advertisements, title pages of books, 
letter-heads, and so on. 

Although the practice varies with different 
kinds of jobs and in different establishments, 
the compositor usually works from copy care- 
fully prepared in the office, containing full in- 
structions as to sizes and styles of type, spacing 
between lines, and other details. In many small 
shops, however, no detailed instructions accom- 
pany the copy, and the work consequently re- 
quires the exercise of careful judgment on the 
part of the compositor. 

The hand-compositor must have good eye- 
sight and the knack of handling type rapidly and 
surely, know thoroughly the type case, be able 
to use type measurements quickly and accu- 
rately, and know the various styles and sizes of 

25 



type employed for different purposes. In addi- 
tion, he should have a thorough knowledge of 
spelling, capitalization, punctuation, division of 
words, and some acquaintance with grammar. 
Language is the material he has to deal with in 
his trade and the more he knows about it the 
better. 

The demand for artistic printing is steadily 
increasing, and the man who is looking for ad- 
vancement beyond routine work will find a 
knowledge of page proportion and balance, 
decorative design, and color harmony of great 
value to him. The ability to do free-hand letter- 
ing is also an asset, as time can often be saved 
by sketching a job before setting it up. 



Machine Operators 
Typesetting for books, magazines, and news- 
papers is usually done on composing machines, 
either linotypes or monotypes. The linotype is 
the more commonly used in Cleveland. The ma- 
chine is provided with a keyboard resembling 
that of a typewriter. As each key is struck by 
the operator it releases a matrix, or mold of a 
letter, which falls into a trough. When the line 
is complete, molten metal is forced against it. 
The metal cools quickly, forming a solid line of 
type. 

26 



The monotype consists of two machines, the 
" keyboard" and the " caster." The operation 
of the keyboard is similar to that of the lino- 
type, but instead of releasing matrices it punches 
holes in a ribbon of paper at the top of the 
machine. This perforated paper, when placed 
in the caster, controls the action of the machine 
somewhat as a perforated roll controls a player 
piano. As the paper passes through the caster 
the type are cast, one at a time, in the order in 
which the letters and words were written on the 
keyboard. 

The machine operator, like the hand-composi- 
tor, should have a thorough knowledge of spell- 
ing, punctuation, and the division of words. 
He needs a general knowledge of the principles 
of typography. Union regulations require a 
number of years' experience in hand-composi- 
tion before machine operating may be taken up. 
Considerable practice is necessary to attain the 
high speed required. Nearly all work in news- 
paper plants is done at high pressure, and even 
in job establishments the machine operator 
must be able to work at a speed comparable to 
that maintained in fast typewriting. 

In the smaller shops operators are in demand 
who know how to keep their own machines in 
good running order, and for this extra work re- 



27 



ceive higher wages. In the larger shops linotype 
machinists do all repairing. 



Proof-readers 
The proof-reader compares the original copy 
with the proof, on which he notes any correc- 
tions to be made. He is assisted by the copy- 
holder — sometimes a woman — who reads copy 
to him. He must be unusually well versed in 
grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, 
usage, and other essentials of a thorough knowl- 
edge of English, and understand the use of 
proof-reader's marks. A general knowledge of 
printing processes, while not absolutely essen- 
tial, is undoubtedly of advantage. 



Stonemen or Make-up Men 
After the proof-reader's corrections have been 
made, the galleys of type go to the " stone," or 
imposing table. The stoneman transfers the type 
from the galley to a steel frame known as a 
chase. The type is then evened down with a 
mallet and planer, firmly fastened in place with 
blocks and wedges, and sent to the pressroom. 
Where the job to be printed contains a number 
of pages, the galleys of type are broken up, and 
the pages so arranged in the chase that when 

28 



printed they will fold in consecutive order , The 
stoneman is usually an experienced compositor. 



Number Employed 
There are in Cleveland about 1,200 people in 
composing-room occupations, or about 30 per 
cent of the total number engaged in the print- 
ing industry. This number includes some 50 
women employed as proof-readers and copy- 
holders. 

In job-printing establishments the hand- 
compositors outnumber the machine operators 
more than four to one. Even in newspaper 
plants the excess of machine operators over 
hand-compositors is less than 10 per cent. For 
the whole city the ratio of hand workers to 
machine workers is more than two to one. 
Hand- and machine-compositors, with composi- 
tors' apprentices, constitute over 80 per cent 
of the total composing-room working force. 



Union Organization 
Nine-tenths of the composing-room workers in 
Cleveland are members of the International 
Typographical Union; although the number of 
shops that employ union men exclusively, called 
closed shops, approximates only one-half of the 
29 



total number in the city. The remainder, while 
employing union labor, observing union hours, 
and paying union wages, reserve the right to 
hire non-union workers. 

The Typographical Union is one of the oldest 
and most progressive labor unions in the 
country. Besides making provision for the train- 
ing of apprentices, it has established a system of 
pensions for men grown old in the trade, and 
pays death benefits to the families of members. 
The union also maintains a sanitarium at 
Colorado Springs for aged and disabled mem- 
bers, and for those suffering from tuberculosis. 
In addition the union has an arbitration and 
conciliation agreement with the employers, 
demands equal pay for men and women, and 
provides for securing sanitary conditions in 
composing-rooms. 

Wages 
Composing-room workers are the best paid in 
the industry. A comparison of average wages 
received by the different groups of workers in 
newspaper and job establishments is shown in 
Table 2. The data on which this comparison is 
based were collected from 44 Cleveland print- 
ing establishments, employing in their compos- 
ing-rooms a total of nearly 400 wage-earners. 
The local union and the Cleveland Branch of 
30 



the Printers League of America by mutual agree- 
ment recently adopted the following scale of 
wages for hand-compositors for five years, from 
January 1, 1916, to December 31, 1920: Day 
wages to be $20 for a week of 48 hours during 
the first year of the agreement, $21 in 1917, $22 
in 1918 and 1919, and $23 in 1920. Wages for 
night work during the term of the agreement are 
to be $3 more than those for day work. This 
agreement applies only to job-printing estab- 
lishments. 



4 



TABLE 2.— AVERAGE DAILY EARNINGS OF JOB AND NEWS- 
PAPER COMPOSING-ROOM WORKERS, CLEVELAND, 1915 







Newspaper 


Workers in trade 


Job offices 


offices 


Foremen 


$5.19 


$6.65 


Linotype machinists 


4.66 


4.84 


Proof-readers 


4.63 


3.98 


Monotype operators 


4.57 




Linotypers 


4.28 


4.65 


Monotype casters 


3.96 


4.30 


Stonemen 


3.94 


4.89 


Hand-compositors 


3.48 


4.58 


Copyholders 


2.30 


2.93 


Apprentices 


1.64 


1.39 



The rates for machine operating in job offices 
are governed by the established scale for news- 
paper offices, which was fixed by an agreement 
made in 1912. Under this agreement compensa- 
tion for make-up men, bankmen, hand-com- 
positors, proof-readers, typesetting-machine op- 
erators, machine tenders, and other journeymen 
31 



in the composing-room is $25.80 a week for day- 
work, and $28.80 for night work. 

On the basis of hourly rates of wages, compo- 
sition ranks among the highest paid of the manu- 
facturing occupations. The union scale for 
machine operators is exceeded in most of the 
building trades, but the irregularity of employ- 
ment in building work offsets the advantage 
in daily wages to some extent. Table 3 com- 
pares the hourly rates for compositors with the 
rates paid skilled workers in other factory in- 
dustries. 



TABLE 3.— UNION SCALE IN CENTS PER HOUR FOR COMPOSI- 
TORS AND FOR SKILLED WORKERS IN OTHER FACTORY IN- 
DUSTRIES 



Workers in trade 


Cents per hour 


Composing-machine operators 


53.75 


Pattern makers 


45.00 


Horseshoers 


44.44 


Hand-compositors, book and job shops 


41.67 


Tool and die makers 


40.00 


Carriage and wagon makers 


40.00 


Molders 


38.89 


Coremakers 


38.89 


Metal polishers and buffers 


36.11 


Upholsterers 


35.00 


Boilermakers 


35.00 


All-round machinists 


35.00 


Machinists (specialists) 


30.56 



Health Conditions 
Compositors suffer most from the diseases which 
are common to indoor workers. The stooping 
position in which much of the work is done, to- 

32 



gether with insufficient ventilation and the 
presence of gases from the molten metal used 
in linotype and monotype machines, favors the 
development of lung diseases. The number of 
deaths from consumption among the compositors 
is more than double that in most outdoor occu- 
pations. There is some danger of lead poisoning, 
especially among linotype operators and mono- 
type casters. 

Apprenticeship 
The apprenticeship system has held its own in 
the compositors' trade better than in most 
industrial occupations. In the establishments 
visited by the Survey Staff there were approxi- 
mately 15 apprentices to each 100 hand- and 
machine-compositors. In most cases there is no 
real system or method of instruction. The points 
principally insisted upon by the union, which 
strongly favors the apprenticeship system, are 
that the number of apprentices employed shall 
not exceed that stipulated in the agreement 
between the employers and the union, and that 
each apprentice shall be required to serve the 
full term of five years. 

The agreement between the union and the 

employers provides that there shall be but one 

apprentice to five journeymen in any one shop, 

with proportional increases of apprentices as the 

3 33 



number of journeymen is increased. No shop 
may employ more than five apprentices. The 
minimum entrance age is fixed at 16 years, and 
the period of service at five years. Every ap- 
prentice must have at least a grammar school 
education. The committee charged with en- 
forcing these regulations is given full power to 
require apprentices to be examined at the end of 
each year and to cancel indenture papers at any 
time if the apprentice does not show aptitude 
or proper qualifications for the work. 

During the first and second years the appren- 
tice is required to perform general work in the 
composing-room under the direction of the fore- 
man. In the third year he joins the union as an 
apprentice. The agreement stipulates that dur- 
ing this year he must be employed four hours 
each day at composition and distribution. In 
the fourth and fifth years the number of hours 
per day on such work is increased to six and 
seven respectively. During the last two years of 
his term he must take the evening trade course 
given by the International Typographical Union, 
the expense of tuition being met by the local 
union. The agreement contains no stipulation 
as to wages for the first and second years. The 
wage for the third year is $9.00 a week, for the 
fourth year, $12.00, and for the fifth, $15.00. 

Apprentices in newspaper composing-rooms 
34 



are permitted to spend the last six months of 
their period working on typesetting machines. 
It is more difficult to learn machine composi- 
tion in job establishments, as they have fewer 
machines and these are in constant use on reg- 
ular work. 

From the standpoint of the employer the 
desirable qualifications for admittance to the 
trade as an apprentice are well described in the 
1913 report of the apprenticeship committee 
of the United Typothetse and Franklin Clubs. 
They are as follows : 

1. An earnest desire to become a printer 

2. Good morals 

3. At least a grammar school education 

4. Mental alertness 

5. Sober, industrious, thrifty parents 

6. Good health — absence of physical defi- 
ciencies 

7. Age approximately 15 years 

8. Full average height 

9. No cigarette smoking 
10. Tidiness in appearance 

Printing employers throughout the country 
have given considerable attention in the last 
few years to the matter of apprentice training. 
In 1913 the Committee on Apprentices of the 
United Typothetse and Franklin Clubs of 
America made an extensive study of the subject, 

35 



and one result of its recommendations was the 
appointment of a national apprentice director, 
under whose supervision a series of 62 hand- 
books, covering every phase of the printing 
industry, is being prepared for use in the train- 
ing of apprentices. 



Summary 
Most typesetting is now done by machine in- 
stead of by hand, although hand work is still 
used on special jobs, such as advertisements, 
title pages, letter-heads, etc. There are two 
important typesetting machines — the linotype 
and the monotype. Each machine has a key- 
board resembling that of the typewriter. Both 
machine operators and hand-compositors need 
a thorough knowledge of spelling, punctuation, 
capitalization, grammar, and the division of 
words. Other employees in the composing- 
room are the make-up men and proof-readers. 
Nearly one- third of the workers in the printing 
industry are employed in the composing-room. 
The composing-room workers are the best 
paid in the printing industry. They are highly 
unionized and are required to serve an ap- 
prenticeship of five years. Apprentice training 
for composing-room work is better organized 
than in most of the manufacturing industries. 

36 



CHAPTER III 

THE PRESSROOM 

The development of improved machines for 
presswork has kept pace with the rapid progress 
of the printing industry. A hundred years ago 
the printer did all his work by hand, using a 
clumsy press consisting of a heavy, upright 
frame supporting two flat surfaces so arranged 
that one could be screwed down against the 
other. After the printer had set the type and 
made up the form, he fastened it to the bed of 
the press, inked it, and laid on the sheet to be 
printed. He then covered the sheet with a 
blanket to soften the impression and screwed 
down the press. This entire process had to be 
repeated for each additional sheet. Today the 
hand press is used only for taking proofs. Com- 
plicated machines, driven by steam or electricity, 
have taken its place. They range in size from the 
card press of the stationery store to newspaper 
presses so large and heavy that they must 
be set up in rooms constructed especially for 
them. 

Three kinds of presses are commonly used in 
37 



commercial printing — platen, cylinder, and ro- 
tary. The platen press is the smallest and most 
easily operated. Like the old hand press, it 
prints from two flat surfaces. It is used chiefly 
for small printing, such as cards, letter-heads, 
and business forms. 

Nearly all printing requiring the use of large 
sheets is done on cylinder presses. The type 
forms are placed on a flat bed which moves back 
and forth under a revolving cylinder on which 
the paper is fed. Cylinder presses are used al- 
most exclusively in book and magazine printing. 

The rotary press differs from the cylinder and 
platen presses in that it carries the type form on 
a cylinder instead of on a flat bed. The paper 
is printed as it passes between two cylinders, 
one carrying the paper and the other the type 
form. 

The newspaper press represents an extension 
of the rotary principle. Every large newspaper 
press is a combination of several rotary presses. 
Each of these smaller units contains two form 
cylinders to which the curved stereotyped forms 
are secured, and opposite them two impression 
cylinders. The paper, which is fed to each unit 
from a separate roll, passes between the two 
pairs of form and impression cylinders and comes 
out printed on both sides. Cutting and folding 



38 



machines form integral parts of the press, so that 
the process is continuous from the roll of white 
paper to the finished newspaper. 

The press not only prints, folds, and cuts its 
product, but counts and stacks it, with every 
fiftieth or hundredth newspaper thrown diag- 
onally across the pile. Some idea of the capacity 
of one of these machines may be gained from the 
statement that a large newspaper press, running 
at full speed, consumes between 50 and 75 miles 
of paper and turns out about 75,000 twelve-page 
papers an hour. 

Cylinder and Platen Pressmen 
Besides having the general care and supervision 
of his press, the platen or cylinder pressman has 
to adjust the form on the bed, "make ready " for 
printing; make " underlays " and " overlays/' 
which are the trade names given to different 
methods for securing an even impression over the 
entire form; see that the printing " registers,' ' 
that is, prints to the exact distance required 
from the margin of the paper; select the ink to 
be used on each job; regulate the ink supply; 
and so on. Color work, particularly, requires 
considerable knowledge of color combinations 
and of the working properties of different kinds 
of ink. 

39 



Web Pressmen 
The duties of the web or newspaper pressman 
differ materially from those of the ordinary cyl- 
inder pressman. He does only one kind of print- 
ing and it is the same the year round. His huge 
and complicated machine, made up of more than 
50,000 separate parts, must be operated effi- 
ciently at high speed and with clock-like regu- 
larity. In case of a breakdown he has to know 
exactly what to do, and how to do it in the 
shortest possible time. He must possess a thor- 
ough knowledge of the mechanical principles in- 
volved in the operation of the press, and use the 
strictest care in its daily overhauling. 

Newspaper pressmen are provided with three 
classes of assistants — brakemen, oilers, and fly- 
boys. These assistants mount the forms upon 
the cylinders, introduce the paper, and attend 
to such other necessary details as making ready, 
oiling, and keeping the press clean. 

Plate Printers 
Plate printers operate a type of press used 
mainly to print such work as personal cards, 
wedding announcements, and invitations. This 
kind of printing is usually done on special presses, 
from steel or copper plates on which the letter- 
ing and designs have been engraved. It is limited 
to a few specialty shops. 

40 



Platen and Cylinder Pressfeeders 
The platen pressfeeder feeds the paper and re- 
moves the printed sheets from the press. The 
cylinder pressfeeder has only to feed the paper, 
as the cylinder automatically carries the sheets 
through the press and piles them neatly after 
printing. The work requires little beyond skill 
in handling sheets of paper rapidly and can be 
learned in a few months. 

In the large shops, where long runs are com- 
mon, automatic mechanical pressfeeders are used 
extensively. It seems probable that they will 
eventually displace many of the hand workers 
now employed. 

Other Occupations 
Pressroom foremen are usually pressmen who 
operate a press in addition to directing the work 
of others. Only in the largest shops do the fore- 
men devote all their time to supervision. Floor- 
men are assistant pressmen. Beginners, called 
flyboys, are employed on odd jobs about the 
pressroom until they learn enough to take a hand 
at pressfeeding. 

In the large shops there are usually one or two 
cutters who operate power-driven cutting ma- 
chines for cutting and trimming the paper to the 
exact size required. The work calls for consider- 

41 



able care and the ability to make simple arith- 
metical computations rapidly. 

Number Employed 
The pressroom is the second largest department 
in the industry, and gives employment in Cleve- 
land to approximately 1,150 people. About 100 
women are employed, chiefly in the large shops, 
as pressfeeders. Approximately 18 per cent of 
the men employed are cylinder pressmen, about 
10 per cent platen pressmen, and less than three 
per cent web pressmen. Pressfeeders comprise 
over 40 per cent of the whole group. Nearly nine- 
tenths of all pressroom workers are employed in 
job establishments. Five occupations — those of 
cutters, floormen, flyboys, plate printers, and 
web pressmen — give employment to fewer than 
40 men each. 

Wages 
Wages in this department are somewhat lower 
than in the composing-room. The average daily 
earnings of pressroom workers in the establish- 
ments from which wage data were collected dur- 
ing the survey are shown in Table 4. 

The hourly rates of pay are high as compared 
with those in other occupations requiring an 
equal or greater amount of skill and knowledge. 
Cylinder pressmen earn more per hour than do 

42 



TABLE 4.— AVERAGE DAILY EARNINGS OF PRESSROOM 
WORKERS 

Job pressroom workers 

Foremen $4.78 

Cylinder pressmen 3.63 

Cutters 3.41 

Platen pressmen 2.97 

Floormen 2.91 

Cylinder pressfeeders, men 2.54 

Cylinder pressfeeders, women 1.77 

Platen pressfeeders, men 1.83 

Platen pressfeeders, women 1.70 

Flyboys 1.56 

Newspaper pressroom workers 

Foremen 6.11 

Web pressmen 4.33 

Web pressmen's assistants 2.95 

tool and die makers, — workers in one of the most 
highly skilled of the metal trades, — and platen 
pressmen in charge of five or more presses earn 
more than all-round machinists and boiler- 
makers. The rate for cylinder pressfeeders is 
about three cents an hour higher than that 
received by the " specialist" machinist in the 
metal trades. The union scale per hour for vari- 
ous pressroom occupations is given in Table 5. 

TABLE 5.— UNION SCALE IN CENTS PER HOUR IN VARIOUS 
PRESSROOM OCCUPATIONS 

Pressmen 

Cylinder 41.67 

Platen (five presses or over) 35.42 

Platen (one or two presses) 27.08 



Cylinder 33.25 

Platen 23.96 

Assistants to pressmen 

Cylinder 34.37 

Platen 28.13 

43 



Health Conditions and Accident Risks 
The chief danger to health in pressroom work is 
lack of ventilation, since to get the best results 
in printing, a warm, even temperature must be 
maintained. There is always some danger of 
accident in working about power-driven ma- 
chinery. The risk in pressroom work is no 
greater than is usually found where machinery 
is used. 

Learning the Trade 
Formal apprenticeship is practically unknown in 
this department. The boy begins as a press- 
feeder, usually on a platen press, and in the 
course of time gets to be a platen pressman. A 
knowledge of platen presswork does not qualify 
a man to run a cylinder press, and as a rule the 
platen pressman who wants to change must 
serve some time as cylinder pressfeeder and cyl- 
inder pressman's assistant. 

In cylinder presswork there is no fixed line of 
promotion. A boy usually begins as a flyboy, 
and after learning pressfeeding may work up to 
the position of floorman, in which capacity, ac- 
cording to union regulations, he must serve four 
years before promotion to pressman. He may 
serve much longer, as he cannot be advanced 
until a vacancy occurs. 

There is no organized system for training be- 
44 



ginners. The boy must pick up the trade 
through experience and practice. The length 
of time required to reach the position of press- 
man will depend largely on how frequently 
changes occur among the force of pressmen 
employed in the shop. 



Summary 
Three kinds of presses, known as the platen, the 
cylinder, and the rotary, are commonly used in 
commercial printing. The platen press has two 
flat surfaces, one holding the type and the other 
the paper and it prints by pressing these to- 
gether. The cylinder press has one flat surface 
holding the type and a rotating cylinder which 
carries the paper and rolls it against the type. 
The rotary press has two revolving cylinders, 
one carrying the type form and the other the 
paper. 

Platen presses are used chiefly for small print- 
ing, such as cards, forms, etc. Books and maga- 
zines are printed mainly on cylinder presses. 
Most newspapers are printed on rotary presses. 
These printing presses vary in size from small 
platen machines operated by hand to enormous 
newspaper presses having more than 50,000 sep- 
arate parts and consuming paper at the rate of 
75 miles an hour. 

45 



Pressroom workers comprise something less 
than one-third of the people engaged in the 
printing industry. Their wages are somewhat 
lower than those of workers in the composing- 
room. They are highly unionized, have regular 
work, and receive somewhat better wages than 
skilled workers of corresponding grades in the 
metal trades. There is little formal apprentice- 
ship and no fixed line of promotion. Beginners 
must pick up the trade through experience and 
practice. 



46 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BINDERY 

Due partly to the fact that there is little book 
printing in Cleveland, the working force in this 
department of the industry is smaller than 
in the composing-room and pressroom depart- 
ments. A considerable number of job-printing 
establishments send out their binding to firms 
which specialize on such work. There is a grow- 
ing tendency towards this sort of specializa- 
tion. 

The bindery is the only department of the 
industry in which any considerable number of 
women are employed. Some of the occupations, 
such as gathering, sewing, and stitching, are 
practically monopolized by women. They are 
also employed extensively in hand- and machine- 
folding. 



Occupations of Women Employees 
Folding, the first operation in bindery work, 
may be performed either by hand or with ma- 
chines. As a rule small sheets are folded by 

47 



hand. The worker doubles the paper in such a 
manner that the printing on one page is exactly- 
even with the printing on the other and creases 
the fold with a small bone stick called a folder. 
The operation is very simple and can be learned 
in a short time, although considerable practice 
is needed to do the work rapidly and accu- 
rately. Large sheets are usually folded by ma- 
chines. The work of the operator is similar to 
pressfeeding. The machine automatically folds 
the sheets into the desired form, and slips them 
one by one into a neat pile on a receiver. When 
folded, the sheet is called a section. Where sev- 
eral sections are to go together in a book or 
pamphlet a small figure or letter, called a " sig- 
nature, " is printed on the first page of each sec- 
tion to serve as a guide in gathering. 

In making up a book the gatherer moves 
rapidly along a row of folded sections, piled on a 
table in regular order, gathering one section 
after another until the book is complete. In 
one Cleveland bindery the sections are piled on 
a circular shelf arranged to revolve about the 
worker, who gathers one section after another as 
the shelf turns. 

The sections are fastened together by hand 
or machine sewers. The book-sewing machines 
that are used in edition bookbinding do the 
work of eight or 10 girls. One girl feeds the sec- 

48 



tions to the machines while another, usually a 
learner, cuts the threads between the completed 
volumes. Wire-stitching machines are used 
extensively on pamphlet work. The operation 
of both book- and wire-stitching machines is 
relatively simple, and most girls can learn the 
work well enough to earn average wages within 
a few weeks. 

Besides the occupations of folding, gathering, 
and sewing, girls are employed in the bindery on 
many other kinds of work, such as numbering 
the pages of blank books, perforating pages of 
trading stamps and checks, punching holes in 
loose-leaf sheets, rounding off corners of pages, 
cutting pages for indexing pamphlets, and feed- 
ing ruling machines. In all except the largest 
binderies, the girls' work varies considerably 
from day to day according to the nature of the 
printing done in the shops. 



Occupations in Which Men Predominate 
From the standpoint of numbers employed, for- 
warding is the most important of the bindery 
trades. No women were engaged in this work 
in the establishments visited by the Survey 
Staff. The forwarder pastes on the first and 
last pages inside the book cover, trims the edges 
of the book with a cutting machine, rounds the 
4 49 



back, and finally pastes on the cover. While 
not highly skilled work, forwarding requires 
accuracy, deftness of hand, and considerable 
experience in the different operations. It ranks 
as a skilled trade, requiring several years to 
learn. 

One or two men are employed in every bind- 
ery to operate cutting machines used for cut- 
ting paper and trimming the edges of pam- 
phlets and books. The work is similar to that of 
the pressroom cutter, already described. Only 
men are employed on this work. 

Rulers operate machines for ruling blank- 
books and business forms. The sheet is fed on 
a cloth belt which passes under a row of needles 
charged with ink. The machines are operated 
by men, although women feeders are frequently 
employed. Ruling is classed as a skilled trade. 
Several years' experience are required to obtain 
a thorough understanding of the work. 

The finishing operations in bookbinding call 
for a high degree of skill. These operations in- 
clude tooling, or the impression of border or 
corner decorations on book covers; stamping 
in the letters of the title on back or front; and 
the final cleaning of the covers. Not over 40 
men in the city are engaged in this trade. 



50 



Number Employed 
Bindery occupations give employment to be- 
tween 800 and 900 people, of whom approxi- 
mately 46 per cent are men and 54 per cent 
women. Among the men the forwarders con- 
stitute more than one-fourth of the total num- 
ber employed. The two other skilled trades — 
ruling and finishing — each employ about 35 
men in the entire city. About one-fifth of the 
women are gatherers and one-fifth sewers and 
stitchers. The other three-fifths are distributed 
among a number of occupations usually classed 
as general bindery work. 



Wages and Working Conditions 
In the establishments from which wage data 
were collected by the Survey Staff, there were 
employed 284 bindery workers. The average 
daily earnings in the various occupations, based 
on returns from 44 establishments, were as 
shown in Table 6. They are believed to be 
fairly representative of the usual wages paid 
during the year 1915 for the different kinds of 
work specified. 

Considerable time is lost through unemploy- 
ment due to the seasonal character of the work 
The ' 'rush " season usually lasts from September 
to December. Due in part to the fact that the in- 

51 



dustry must depend mainly on the local mar- 
ket, the amount of work, and consequently the 
number of workers required, varies considerably 
from month to month. A few establishments 
engaged in a special line, such as trading stamp 
or bank check printing, keep a full force the 
year round, but this is often impossible in book 
and job establishments doing a general business. 
There is more irregularity of employment among 
the women than among the men. 



TABLE 6. 



-AVERAGE DAILY EARNINGS OF BINDERY 
WORKERS IN CLEVELAND. 1915 



Workers in trade 


Men 


Women 


Foremen 


$4.78 


$2.05 


Rulers 


3.56 




Finishers 


3.51 




Forwarders 


3.23 




Cutters 


3.21 




Machine-folders 


2.81 


1.49 


Wire-stitchers 




1.57 


Apprentices 


1.53 




Gatherers 




1.52 


Sewers 




1.52 


Other bindery operatives 


1.40 


1.51 



Health conditions compare favorably with those 
in other factory occupations. The work, al- 
though monotonous, is not usually exhausting. 
Conditions as to ventilation and sanitation in 
the plants visited were good. 

In the occupations in which the majority of 
the women are employed, the beginner starts 
on such work as folding or pasting and, as op- 
. 52 




T3 
b£ 



portunity presents, gradually acquires practice 
in the better paid kinds of work, such as gather- 
ing and machine operating. There are some 
traces of the apprenticeship system in forward- 
ing, ruling, and finishing, but these trades are 
so small that all of them combined require only 
a very few new workers each year. 



Summary 
Less than 1,000 people are engaged in bindery 
work in Cleveland. Slightly more than half of 
them are women, most of whom are employed 
in work requiring only a fair degree of skill. 
There is considerable unemployment due to the 
seasonal character of the work, which employs 
more people during the winter months than 
during the summer. There is little apprentice- 
ship, most of the workers gaining promotions 
gradually with increased experience rather than 
following any definite line of progress or training. 



53 



CHAPTER V 

PLATE-MAKING AND LITHOGRAPHY 

Illustrations were first printed from wood cuts 
in the early part of the 15th century. A block 
of close-grained wood was engraved by hand in 
such a manner as to cut away from the surface 
everything except the lines and points that were 
to be reproduced in the finished illustration. 
These the engraver left standing out in relief. 
The surface was then coated with ink and a 
piece of paper pressed firmly against it. By 
this method the illustrations were printed one 
by one. Not many years after the development 
of this process, similar methods were used for 
making engravings on copper or steel plates 
instead of on wood blocks. Wood engravings 
are seldom employed in modern printing, and 
the use of copper and steel engravings is limited 
almost entirely to the printing of visiting cards, 
invitations, and announcements. Nearly all 
printing plates for the reproduction of pictures 
are now made by the photo-engraving process. 

Photo-engraving 
If the picture to be reproduced is a pen and ink 
drawing, or any sort of a drawing containing 

54 




T3 



CD 

6 

o 



only black lines or dots, it is first photographed 
directly on a glass plate. If the picture is a 
photograph, a glass screen, covered with two 
sets of fine black lines crossing each other at 
right angles, is inserted between the lens of the 
camera and the photographic plate, for the 
purpose of breaking up the solid tones of the 
photograph into tiny black dots. After de- 
velopment, the film is stripped from the plate, 
reversed, placed on another glass plate, and 
printed on sensitized zinc or copper. This plate 
is inked and afterwards washed, the ink ad- 
hering only to the printed parts which represent 
the lines or dots in the picture. The plate is 
next covered with an acid-proof powder or 
solution, and after heating is put into an acid 
bath which etches away the unprotected parts 
of the plate so that the lines or dots stand out 
in relief. When the etching is finished the sur- 
plus metal is cut away with a routing tool and 
the plate tacked on a wooden base to bring it 
up to the standard height of printing type. 

Artists prepare the photographs or other 
original material for reproduction by retouch- 
ing and shading with hand and air-brushes. 
Photographers operate the camera and develop 
the plate. The stripper strips the thin film from 
the photographic negative and transfers it to 
another glass. The etcher handles the plate in 

55 



the etching process. The router cuts away such 
parts of the plate as are not to appear in print- 
ing. Blockers fasten the plates on wooden 
blocks. Finishers level up the engraving and 
cut away by hand such portions as the router 
cannot reach with his machine. Proofers make 
proofs of the finished engravings. 

These classifications are adhered to only in 
the larger shops. In small establishments one 
man may perform several or all of the opera- 
tions. The fact that all the photo-engraving 
shops in the city employ not over 100 men, 
working in from 20 to 30 shops, indicates the 
impossibility of maintaining sharply defined 
subdivisions. For this reason the boy who wants 
to become a photo-engraver should learn every 
branch of the trade. All the work, with the 
exception of blocking, requires considerable 
technical knowledge and skill. 

TABLE 7— AVERAGE DAILY EARNINGS IN PHOTO-ENGRAV- 
ING OCCUPATIONS, CLEVELAND, 1915 



Workers in trade 


Average 
daily earnings 


Foremen 


$6.72 


Artists 


6.32 


Photographers 


4.69 


Etchers 


4.52 


Routers 


4.25 


Finishers 


4.21 


Proofers 


3.69 


Strippers 


3.61 


Blockers 


2.36 


Apprentices 


1.49 


Art apprentices 


1.27 



56 



The trade is strongly unionized and main- 
tains an apprenticeship system for beginners. 
The period of service is from four to five years. 
Average daily earnings in the different occu- 
pations are shown in Table 7. 



Stereotyping 
Stereotyping as used in the printing of news- 
papers is a method of duplicating in a single 
sheet of metal the form of all the type that 
would otherwise be needed to print an entire 
page. The reading material of the page is first 
set up in type by hand or by means of the 
linotype machine. This constitutes the type 
form. A sheet of paper pulp (papier-mache) 
is then laid on the face of this form and pressed 
against the type by a powerful roller. This 
process makes the paper pulp into a sheet known 
as a matrix, having on its surface an exact re- 
production of the letters, rules, and illustrations 
of the type form. This matrix is next placed in 
a curved mold and hot stereotype metal, which 
is similar to ordinary type metal, is poured in. 
By this means stereotype plates are produced 
which are curved so as to fit the cylinders of the 
rotary presses and which have on their faces 
exact duplications of the original type forms. 
The purpose of this stereotype process is to 
57 



produce a printing form that is solid and at the 
same time curved to fit the cylinders of the 
rotary press. These objects cannot be attained 
by the use of the ordinary movable type used 
in hand setting. 

There is little stereotyping done in Cleveland 
outside of newspaper establishments. The total 
number of stereotypers in the city does not ex- 
ceed 40 or 50, including foremen, journeymen, 
and apprentices. The average daily wage is 
about $4.00. 

Electrotyping 
Many illustrations, particularly those used in 
advertisements, are printed from electrotype 
plates. By this process any number of plates 
can be made from a single original. Type pages 
are frequently electroplated when large editions 
of books are to be printed, so as to save wear on 
the type and permit of its immediate use in 
other work. 

The electrotyper first takes an impression in 
wax of the type form or engraving which is to 
be reproduced. The projections and sharp edges 
are then cut off and the low spots built up with 
melted wax, after which the mold is coated with 
graphite and placed in a tank containing a bar 
of copper and an acid solution. A current of 
electricity passing through this bath dissolves 

58 



the copper and deposits it in a thin layer on 
the face of the mold. The mold is then taken 
from the tank and the thin copper plate stripped 
from its face and stiffened by baking it with 
about a quarter of an inch of lead. The routing, 
finishing, and blocking are performed in the 
same way as in the photo-engraving process. 

The classification of occupations includes case 
fillers, molders, builders, batterymen, casters, 
routers, finishers, and blockers. The total num- 
ber of men in the city employed in these various 
occupations does not exceed 115. On the whole, 
the work is less highly skilled than photo-en- 
graving. The trade is strongly unionized. There 
is no real apprenticeship system; beginners are 
employed in the less skilled occupations, such 
as blocking, and learn the trade by practice and 
observation. Average daily earnings in the dif- 
ferent occupations are shown in Table 8. 

TABLE 8 —AVERAGE DAILY EARNINGS IN ELECTROTYPING 
OCCUPATIONS, CLEVELAND, 1915 



Workers in trade 


Average 
daily earnings 


Foremen 




$4.91 


Moldera 




4.41 


Finishers 




4.01 


Casters 




3.18 


Routers 




3.17 


Builders 




3.13 


Blockers 




2.05 


Batterymen 




1.97 


Case fillers 




1.59 


Apprentices 




1.10 



59 



LlTHOGKAPHING 

Most fine color work in printing, such as maga- 
zine covers and circus and motion picture 
posters, is done by the lithographic process. 
It differs radically from type or plate printing 
in that the printing surface is flat, while in 
type and plate work it is in relief. 

The design is usually drawn upon a stone of 
special composition. After the stone has been 
carefully planed and polished, the design is put 
on with greasy crayon or greasy ink. The rest 
of the stone is then washed with an acid which 
gives it additional absorbing power. The press 
is provided with water rollers which saturate 
the parts of the stone not covered by the design. 
The water-soaked portion repels the ink, while 
the portion covered by the design absorbs the 
ink from the ink rollers and transfers it to the 
paper. 

In poster work the design is usually drawn 
by an artist directly upon the stone; in other 
work, such as printing bank checks, the sketch 
is first made on a special kind of paper and then 
transferred to the stone by pressure. When 
several colors are used, a separate stone must 
be made for each color. Zinc plates are some- 
times used in this process. 

Two of the largest lithographic plants in the 
country are located in Cleveland and probably 

60 



two-thirds of all the lithographic work of the 
country is done here. About 400 men are em- 
ployed, of whom about 65 per cent are engaged 
in preparing the stones for printing, and about 
35 per cent in the pressrooms. Only three of 
the skilled occupations — those of the poster 
artists, pressmen, and transferrers — employ 
more than 20 men each. Poster artists, who 
draw directly on the stone the designs for cir- 
cus and moving picture posters, constitute the 
largest group. Their work gives opportunity 
for the exercise of considerable artistic ability 
and taste. From the wage standpoint it ranks 
first among the skilled industrial occupations in 
the city. It must be said, however, that partly 
because of the small number employed — be- 
tween 140 and 160 in all — and partly because 
of the stringent union regulations as to ap- 
prentices, the opportunities for learning the 
work are limited. It has the further disad- 
vantage of being highly localized, as poster 
printing is done in only a few cities of the 
country. 

The work of the lithographic pressman differs 
considerably from that of the pressman in most 
book and job establishments. On the me- 
chanical side the requirements are about the 
same, but the use of both water and ink rollers, 
and a flat printing surface, makes for a consider- 

61 



able difference in methods of operation. The 
organization of the pressroom is similar to that 
in book and job establishments. 

The average daily earnings of lithographic 
workers in the establishments from which wage 
data were collected during the Survey are shown 
in Table 9. 



TABLE 9.— AVERAGE DAILY EARNINGS IN LITHOGRAPHIC 
PRINTING OCCUPATIONS, CLEVELAND, 1915 



Workers in trade 


Average 
daily earnings 


Lettermen 


$6.63 


Artists 


6.41 


Pressroom foremen 


5.80 


Grainers 


4.73 


Engravers 


4.35 


Pressmen 


3.91 


Transferrers and proofers 


3.41 


Pressroom apprentices 


2.80 


Tracers 


2.63 


Stone polishers 


2.53 


Pressfeeders 


1.72 


Other apprentices 


1.59 


Artist apprentices 


1.23 


Flyboys 


1.10 



As in other departments of the industry, the 
workers are strongly organized. The unions 
exercise close control over the admittance of 
new workers. The poster artists' union takes an 
unusual amount of interest in the selection and 
training of apprentices, and endeavors to pro- 
vide every opportunity for them to learn every 
phase of the work during their term of service. 
In the pressrooms there is no system of or- 

62 




Sixty-two per cent of all lithographic poster work of the 
country is done in Cleveland 



ganized training for apprentices. Beginners 
start as flyboys or pressfeeders, and work up 
gradually to the positions of floormen and 
pressmen. 

Summary 
The workers in photo-engraving, stereotyping, 
electrotyping, and lithography number perhaps 
700 in Cleveland. They are distributed among 
more than 20 distinct trades requiring the most 
diverse sorts of skill, knowledge, and training. 

There are about 100 men in the city engaged 
in the different processes of photo-engraving, 
and they are scattered among as many as 25 
different establishments. There are from 60 to 
70 men engaged in stereotyping, most of whom 
are employed in the newspaper offices. There 
are about 125 electro typers, and these workers, 
like the engravers and stereotypers, are strongly 
unionized. In all three branches of the work 
the employees are mostly men; they are divided 
among a large number of trades; they earn 
fairly good wages; they suffer little from ir- 
regularity of employment; and they are em- 
ployed in very small groups in a large number 
of different establishments. 

Most of the lithographic poster work of 
America is done in Cleveland. There are about 
400 men engaged here. The work is highly 
63 



skilled, well paid, and strongly unionized. The 
lithographic poster artists are numerous and 
are the highest paid workmen in industry in 
this city. 

There is no well-organized system for training 
apprentices among the photo-engravers, stereo- 
typers, or electrotypers, but there is an efficient 
and strictly regulated one for beginners among 
the poster artists. 



64 



CHAPTER VI 

TRAINING BEFORE THE BOY LEAVES 
SCHOOL 

In the preceding pages we have indicated some 
of the educational qualifications essential to 
success in the several trades of the printing 
industry. They vary widely. There is little 
relation between the technique of hand-com- 
position and the technique of presswork. The 
kind of instruction that would most directly 
benefit the pressman would be of small value 
to the bookbinder or the photo-engraver. There 
are few trade elements common to these dif- 
ferent occupations. This condition has an im- 
portant bearing on the problem of vocational 
training which will meet the needs of more than 
a single trade. 



The Elementary School 
Up to the end of the compulsory attendance 
period, school training, preparatory to entering 
the printing trades, must be of the most general 
sort. There are two reasons for this. The first 
5 65 



is that only a few boys in the elementary schools 
are sure that they desire to enter the printing 
industry, and among these there are few indeed 
who have sufficient knowledge of industrial 
conditions to know which one of the 50 trades 
they desire to go into. 

The second and most important barrier that 
stands in the way of the establishment in ele- 
mentary schools of trade preparatory courses 
for printing is that there are not enough boys 
in any one school to warrant the establishment 
of such special courses in that building. 

Most of the boys in our public schools were 
born in this country. In a few years they will 
be grown up. When they grow up they will be 
scattered through the different trades, profes- 
sions, and industries in about the same pro- 
portions as are the American-born men of the 
population at the present time. 

One of the important facts repeatedly im- 
pressed upon the student of occupational statis- 
tics is that the figures showing the occupations 
of the people in different localities show wonder- 
fully constant relationships from year to year. 
Individuals change frequently from one oc- 
cupation to another. But in any given com- 
munity the proportions of people engaged in 
each branch of work change but slowly from 
decade to decade. This is true even of occupa- 



tions that we think of as having been revolu- 
tionized within the past few years. For example, 
10.3 per cent of the women workers of Cleve- 
land were employed in offices in 1900 and 10 
years later the proportion had only increased to 
14.1 per cent. Even slower changes are the 
rule in other industries and occupations, except 
when some great change, such as the develop- 
ment of the automobile, produces a new group 
of workers or reduces an old one. 

Thus we may be almost certain that when 
the boys now in the public schools of Cleveland 
reach adult manhood they will go into the 
different occupations in about the same propor- 
tions in which their fathers and older brothers 
are now distributed among them. This means 
that among each 20 boys there are about eight 
who will go into mechanical work, eight more 
who will enter the commercial and clerical 
fields, two who will go into transportation, one 
who will be engaged in domestic or personal 
service, and one who will be in some professional 
or public position. It is interesting to note that 
nearly half of these boys will be engaged in 
head work rather than hand work. 

Let us now consider how this principle affects 
the problem of establishing school courses which 
will prepare boys to enter the largest trade in 
the printing industry — hand and machine com- 

67 



position. How many boys now in the public 
schools are likely to be compositors when they 
grow up? According to the census of 1910 there 
were in Cleveland in that year 739 compositors, 
type-setters, and linotypers between 20 and 45 
years old, of whom approximately 600 were of 
native birth. The total number of native-born 
men in the city between these ages was about 
65,000, of which the compositors constituted 
slightly less than one per cent. 

Applying this ratio to the school adminis- 
trative unit we obtain surprising and rather 
discouraging results. In an elementary school 
of 1,000 pupils there would be, including all 
ages and grades, approximately 500 boys, of 
whom about one per cent, or five boys, may be 
expected to become compositors. But many of 
the boys are below the age when vocational 
training of any kind is advisable. It is the 
commonly accepted view among educators that 
such training should not be undertaken before 
the age of 12 years, and many believe that this 
is too early. The number of boys 12 years old 
and over in a school of 1,000 pupils does not 
usually exceed 160. Applying the ratio to this 
number we find that our class of prospective 
compositors dwindles to about two boys. Even 
if we add all the workers in the other printing 
trades and in the semi-skilled and unskilled 

68 



occupations of the industry, the case is not much 
better. The total number of male wage-earners, 
both foreign and native, employed in the in- 
dustry at the time of the last census was about 
2,700, or less than four times the total number of 
compositors, so that a general course for all the 
boys who are likely to become printers of any 
kind would directly benefit about six boys. A 
class of this size is too small to justify the em- 
ployment of special teachers and the purchase 
of special equipment. 

Bookbinding, introduced in the manual train- 
ing course here this year, offers another excellent 
illustration of the difficulties which attend vo- 
cational training for small trades. There are 
approximately one-fifth as many bookbinders 
as there are compositors in the city; conse- 
quently of any given number of boys in the pub- 
lic schools, about one-fifth of one per cent may 
become bookbinders. The number enrolled in 
the larger of the two schools in which this course 
is now taught is about 400. In a group of this 
size there would be, at the most, one future 
bookbinder. 



The Junior High School 

The junior high school plan, tentatively adopted 

by the school system this year, has the ad- 

69 



vantage, for the purposes of vocational training, 
of concentrating in relatively large groups boys 
old enough to begin such work. Yet even here 
the small number of boys who can be expected 
to enter the printing industry constitutes a 
nearly insuperable obstacle to the establishment 
of a specialized course. In the Empire School, 
the larger of the two junior high schools now 
established, there are enrolled approximately 
400 boys. Of these, not more than three or four 
are likely to become compositors, and the total 
number who will enter the printing industry in 
any capacity does not exceed eight or nine. 

At present the junior high schools take only 
seventh and eighth grade pupils. If a ninth 
grade is added, the enrollment of boys in the 
Empire School will probably increase to 500. 
A rough classification of their future occupa- 
tional distribution works out as follows : 

Boys who will enter 

Manufacturing and mechanical occupations 220 

Commercial occupations 100 

Clerical occupations . . 80 

Transportation occupations 55 

Domestic and personal service occupations 25 

Professional occupations 15 

Public service occupations 5 

Total 500 

It will be noticed that the boys who are headed 
for professional, clerical, or commercial work 

70 



form a group nearly equal in size to the body of 
future industrial workers. A further analysis of 
the industrial group will show approximately 
the number likely to enter skilled trades. 

Boys who will enter 

Metal trades 50 

Building trades 45 

Printing trades 9 

Other trades 12 

Semi-skilled and unskilled industrial occupations 104 

Total 220 

If there were enough common elements among 
the various metal and building trades, the 
number who will later enter them might justify 
a general metal trades' course or a building 
trades' course. A special printing course for 
nine boys is, however, administratively impos- 
sible. While it is probable that among boys who 
go as far as the junior high school the proportion 
entering the skilled trades will be somewhat 
larger than these figures show, and the propor- 
tion of unskilled and semi-skilled somewhat 
smaller, nevertheless the figures are fairly re- 
liable and better than any others that are 
available. 



A General Industrial Course 

It is the opinion of the Survey Staff that a 

general industrial course should be provided for 

71 



the boys who are likely to enter industrial work 
when they leave school, and who comprise nearly 
one-half of the enrollment. Specific trade train- 
ing should not be attempted during the junior 
high school period. What the boys need at this 
time is practice in the application of mathe- 
matics, drawing, and elementary science to 
industrial problems, and the shop equipment 
should be selected with this object in mind. It 
is doubtful whether it should include a print 
shop, for while such a shop would be useful to 
the boys who will become printers, it would be 
of little value in training for other industries. 
The future carpenter or machinist will benefit 
very slightly, if at all, from learning to set 
type. Moreover, printing equipment occupies an 
amount of space out of all proportion to its 
general utility in the ordinary public school. 

In the volume of the Survey report dealing 
with the course of study, printing has been 
suggested as a desirable branch of manual 
training for the purpose of making the boys 
familiar in a concrete way with materials and 
processes in their details, with the nature of 
work, and with the nature of responsibility. It 
is quite true that printing is one of the avail- 
able forms of manual training work having 
distinct value for the purposes suggested. In 
the present chapter, however, it is being con- 

72 



sidered from the point of view of trade-pre- 
paratory training, and here its limitations are 
serious. 

The printing trades have certain educational 
needs in common with the larger building and 
mechanical trades which can be met in a general 
industrial course. The pressman, the linotyper, 
and the monotyper are machine operators, 
rather than hand craftsmen. They need the same 
general familiarity with mechanical movements 
and the physical laws underlying them that 
machinists, pattern-makers, molders, steam en- 
gineers, and other mechanical tradesmen need. 
Much of this kind of knowledge can be secured 
through practice in taking apart and assembling 
various types of machines. Such work offers 
more opportunity for obtaining an understand- 
ing of mechanical principles than machine 
operating, although this also should have its 
place in the course. Almost every boy is in- 
tensely interested in getting at the "insides" 
of a machine, and a series of problems in machine 
assembling will not only provide greater facilities 
for teaching the theory of mechanics, which is 
what the boys most need, but will hold the 
interest of the class better than machine oper- 
ating or tool work alone. 

A knowledge of the principles of color har- 
mony is of great value to lithographers, press- 
73 



men, and hand-compositors. It is also needed 
by painters and paperhangers who form one 
of the largest trade groups in the city. In- 
struction in this subject should be included in 
the general industrial course, or made available 
in connection with the work in drawing. 

A knowledge of the principles of design is 
also of considerable advantage to lithographers 
and compositors. There is a constantly growing 
demand for printing which conforms to aesthetic 
as well as typographical standards. The first- 
class compositor should be something of an 
artist. He ought to know how to make a free- 
hand sketch of any job submitted to him, so 
that before the type is set he can be sure that 
the arrangement of the material and the selec- 
tion of type will give the most pleasing effect. 
Familiarity with artistic standards is even more 
essential in some of the lithographic trades. 
The ability to do free-hand lettering rapidly 
and fairly well is an asset in many other in- 
dustrial occupations. Both lettering and design 
should be given a prominent place in the draw- 
ing course. 

All work in the composing-room, the largest 
department of the industry, demands a thorough 
knowledge of spelling, punctuation, and the 
division of words. These elements of language 
are of indirect vocational value in practically 

74 



every trade. The carpenter, or machinist, or 
painter, or electrician can get along without 
them, but if he hopes to advance beyond routine 
work, the ability to spell and punctuate correctly 
and express himself grammatically becomes of 
real vocational utility. It is not suggested that 
instruction in English for boys who expect to 
enter industrial occupations should be dif- 
ferentiated from that provided for other pupils 
in the school. It is not, however, asking too 
much that every boy at the end of the com- 
pulsory period be able to spell, punctuate, and 
write simple English correctly. If he is going to 
work at 15 or 16, these utilitarian elements of 
language will be of the greatest value to him. 

The necessity for keeping the utilitarian view- 
point constantly in mind is emphasized by the 
fact that the ages of 14 and 15 represent the 
school's last chance at the boys who will later 
become artisans, and that many of these boys 
are from one to three years behind their grades. 
Educationally, printing workers rank higher 
than those in other factory occupations, yet 
even in this industry the average journeyman 
possesses less than a complete elementary edu- 
cation. Composing-room employees are the 
best educated men in the industry, yet the in- 
vestigations conducted by the Survey show that 
only 28 per cent had received any high school 

75 



training, and only eight per cent were high school 
graduates. Six per cent had left school before 
entering the seventh grade, and 16 per cent 
before entering the eighth grade. In other de- 
partments of the industry the showing was even 
less favorable. 

Another type of instruction that is of great 
importance in these last years of the boy's school 
life relates to economic and working conditions 
in wage-earning occupations. There can be no 
such thing as an intelligent choice of vocation 
without accurate and comprehensive informa- 
tion as to such matters as wages, unemploy- 
ment, hours of labor, health conditions and 
accident risks, chances for advancement, and 
opportunities for employment in each trade. 
Information of this sort is available in state 
and federal labor reports, and can be obtained 
locally through labor unions and employers' 
associations. The present series of industrial 
education studies contains a great deal of 
valuable material for a course of this kind. 



A Two-year Vocational Course Needed 
The school records show that about one-half 
of the boys enrolled in the public schools drop 
out at the ages of 14 and 15. About one-fourth 
of these boys have less than a seventh grade 

76 



education when they leave school and one-half 
have not completed the elementary course. 
Less than one-fourth have had any high school 
training. Besides the handicap of a scant edu- 
cational equipment, they find when they seek 
employment that industry has no jobs that lead 
anywhere for 14 and 15 year old boys. Very 
few of the skilled trades in Cleveland will take 
an apprentice under the age of 16. In the 
printing industry the compositors' union, which 
represents a large proportion of skilled printing 
workers, fixes the entering age at 16, and several 
other printing unions maintain the same rule. 
As a result of this condition a large number of 
boys spend a year or two drifting about in 
transient jobs which not only offer no chance for 
advancement, but which often prove to be the 
first steps toward an aimless odd- job working life. 
At present the school permits the boy to go 
to work before the world of industry has any 
real use for him. The investigations conducted 
during the Survey have convinced the members 
of the Survey Staff that the present age limit 
for compulsory attendance is about one year 
below the requirements of industry. The limit 
should be increased to 16, and provision made 
for a more direct preparation between 14 and 
16 for entrance into wage-earning occupations 
than is offered by the present school facilities. 

77 



This might be done either through a modifi- 
cation of the technical high school course for 
the first two years or by the establishment of a 
two-year course in a separate vocational school. 
The course in the larger of the two technical 
high schools, the East Technical, includes shop 
work in joinery and wood-turning during the 
first year, and in pattern making and foundry 
work during the second year. In the West 
Technical High School all boys take pattern 
making and forging, or sheet metal work during 
the first year, and forging, pipe-fitting, brazing, 
rivetting, and cabinet work during the second. 
Printing is introduced as an elective subject in 
the third and fourth years. The proportion of 
technical high school graduates who become 
printers, however, is so small as to be practically 
negligible. An investigation as to the occupa- 
tions in which graduates of the East Technical 
High School were engaged in 1915, showed less 
than one per cent employed in the printing 
industry. Boys who are going to become 
journeymen artisans do not as a rule enter the 
high schools, or if forced in by the law during 
the last year of the compulsory attendance 
period, stay but one year. 

The fact that both technical schools are 
crowded at the present time and the difficulties 
that are inevitable in the administration of 

78 



simultaneous two-year courses and four-year 
courses in the same school, weigh heavily against 
the chances of finding a solution of this prob- 
lem in the technical high schools. The present 
courses were formulated to meet the require- 
ments of boys who expect to go on to college, 
rather than those of boys who will go to work 
in the trades. Yet 25 per cent of each entering 
class drops out after attending one year, and 
25 per cent of the remainder at the end of the 
second year. A separate school in which greater 
emphasis could be placed upon direct training 
for the industrial trades, would result in a more 
profitable use of the pupils' time and would 
probably induce many of them to remain in 
school up to the apprentice entering age. 

Such a school, with a curriculum embracing 
vocational training for all the principal trades, 
should be able to command an enrollment of 
sufficient size to warrant a first-class shop 
equipment and a corps of well-trained shop 
teachers. The number of boys from the public 
schools who enter the skilled trades each year 
indicates that pupils for a two-year course 
would not be lacking. Even if only one-half of 
them attended the school, the enrollment would 
reach at least 800 boys. In a school of this size 
the number desiring to learn any one of the im- 
portant trades would be sufficiently large to 

79 



make possible economical, practical instruction. 
Such printing trades as composition and press- 
work would be represented by classes of from 
30 to 40 boys each. 

A full description and discussion of the details 
of organization in a school of this type is con- 
tained in the report of the Survey entitled, 
"Wage Earning and Education." We may 
suggest in this study, however, the outlines of a 
course which it is believed would give valuable 
preparatory training for boys who expect to go 
to work in the printing industry. For the first 
year the course should aim to give the pupils 
a general familiarity with printing processes. 
The boy should be encouraged to make a definite 
choice as early as possible among the several 
trades, and then devote his shop time ex- 
clusively to the trade selected. It is not expected 
that within the time available more than a 
beginning could be made in any of the trades. 
It is not the object of such a school to produce 
skilled workmen, but to turn out boys who can 
start as apprentices with a general knowledge 
of trade theory. The boys will have plenty of 
opportunities during the apprenticeship period 
to acquire speed and manual skill, but very few 
for securing a clear understanding of the re- 
lation of drawing, physics, chemistry, mathe- 
matics, and art to their work. They learn the 

80 



how, but not the why, of the trade. It is in teach- 
ing the why that the vocational school can per- 
form its most valuable service. 

Besides the usual supply of type, type cases, 
composing tables, and other composing-room 
equipment, the shop should be provided with 
several platen presses, and at least one cylinder 
press. Shop teachers must have a thorough 
understanding of trade theory, and experience 
as journeymen in job-printing establishments. 

As far as possible all the shop work should be 
kept in close touch with the academic studies. 
The minimum standard for completing the 
course in English should be a thorough knowl- 
edge of the rules of punctuation, capitalization, 
and grammar, gained through work of the most 
practical kind. To the printer, language is a 
tool, in the use of which he needs a definite kind 
of skill, and the aim in teaching this subject 
should therefore be the development of ability 
to use English for a specific purpose. 

In mathematics the printer needs little beyond 
a thorough knowledge of arithmetic. Many 
journeymen are lacking in the ability to apply 
arithmetical principles quickly and accurately 
to problems involving type measurements and 
the laying out of printing jobs. The amount of 
waste, both of time and material, due to rule- 
of-thumb methods, accounts to a considerable 
6 81 



extent for the high percentage of failures in 
printing shops. 

Because of the small initial investment, this 
industry affords many opportunities for the 
ambitious workman to establish a business of 
his own. That so few succeed is due chiefly 
to their ignorance of business methods and 
their failure to apply the principles of exact 
accounting to their expenditures of time, ma- 
terials, and money. They guess rather than 
estimate the cost of paper and the time required 
to set and print a job; they waste paper and 
time by guessing at sizes; and in estimating 
costs fail to reckon the time lost in making 
corrections. Almost invariably they cut prices, 
and at the end of a year or two they cannot 
understand why their balance is on the wrong 
side of the books. Every first-class shop main- 
tains an accurate system of cost accounting. 
The journeyman workman should know not 
only how to fill out his time-sheet, but what it 
means in the general economy of the shop. For 
this reason the mathematics course should in- 
clude a large number of problems stated in 
terms of printing costs, and a rigid system of 
cost accounting should be followed in all the 
shop work. 

Elementary science should form an impor- 
tant part of the proposed course. A general 

82 



knowledge of the principles of mechanics, the 
chemistry of inks, color harmony, electricity, 
and the composition of paper is needed by every 
printer. The teaching of both chemistry and 
physics should closely follow trade lines. The 
same rule should be observed in drawing. Free- 
hand lettering, applied design, and practice in 
sketching " layouts " should be given special 
attention. 

The history and economics of the industry 
should be taken up in the second year. The 
future printer should possess an understanding 
of the development of printing during the past 
century, and the part that modern invention has 
played in this development. He should also be 
made familiar with the general organization of 
the industry, the advantages and disadvantages 
of each trade, union regulations, the nature of 
occupational diseases and how to guard against 
them, etc. The course should acquaint him with 
the literature of the various trades, such as 
handbooks, trade and labor organization jour- 
nals, and special publications relating to the 
industry. The vocational school merely in- 
troduces him to the trade. His learning period 
lasts for several years after he leaves the school, 
and the course should put him in intelligent 
contact with the sources of knowledge that will 
be useful to him in the future. 

83 



Summary 
There are two important barriers standing in 
the way of establishing in elementary schools 
trade-preparatory courses in printing. The first 
is that few of the boys in these schools are sure 
that they want to enter the printing industry, 
and if they were sure there are few indeed among 
them who know which of the 50 trades of 
printing work they desire to go into. 

The second barrier is the fact that only three 
boys in each 100 among those in school in 
Cleveland will probably enter the printing in- 
dustry. This means that there are not enough 
of them in any one elementary school to render 
the establishment of special, trade-preparatory 
classes practicable. 

In junior high schools, where boys of the upper 
ages are brought together in large numbers, the 
establishment of general industrial courses is 
recommended, and in these the future printers 
should be given instruction in mechanics, draw- 
ing, design, color harmony, and elementary 
science. 

The establishment of a two-year vocational 
course is recommended with first-class shop 
equipment and well-trained teachers for classes 
in printing. 



84 



CHAPTER VII 

TRAINING FOR APPRENTICES AND 
JOURNEYMEN 

Both of the technical high schools offer evening 
courses in printing. The night school year 
comprises 80 hours of instruction, given in two 
terms of 10 weeks each. The schools charge a 
tuition fee of $5.00 a term, of which $3.50 is 
refunded if the pupil maintains an average at- 
tendance of 75 per cent. In a few instances 
employers meet this tuition expense for their 
apprentices. 

Of the 28 persons enrolled in the printing 
course in the East Technical Night School 
during the spring term of 1915-16, three were 
journeymen printers, five described themselves 
as "helpers," 11 were apprentices, one was 
employed in the office of a printing establish- 
ment, and eight were engaged in occupations 
unrelated to printing. No special provision 
is made for apprentices. The course consists 
of hand-composition, a little presswork, and 
lectures on trade subjects. The class in the 
West Technical Night School was suspended at 
the end of the first term this year. 

85 



An idea of how small a factor the school 
represents in the training of printing trades' 
apprentices may be gained by comparing the 
present enrollment of 11 apprentices with the 
total number in the city, estimated at from 200 
to 250. The course is planned "to help broaden 
the shop training of those working at the 
trade." That it does so to any considerable 
extent is doubtful. Most of the boys who attend 
are employed during the day in composing- 
rooms, where they get a maximum of practice 
and a minimum of theory. Whether an ad- 
ditional two hours of hand-work at night two 
nights a week for 20 weeks is productive of 
much benefit is open to serious question. The 
true function of the night school should be to 
supply trade instruction which the apprentice 
has no opportunity to secure in the shop, 
rather than additional practice in the kind of 
work which his job already provides in abundant 
measure. 

It is instructive to compare the methods 
followed in the night schools with the practice 
in the apprentice course prescribed by the 
International Typographical Union. This 
course, established a few years ago, is required 
during the fourth and fifth years of the ap- 
prenticeship period. It is taught by journey- 
men in evening classes, under the supervision 

86 



of the central office of the Typographical Union 
Commission on Trade Education, located in 
Chicago, to which all the work must be sub- 
mitted. For this purpose the local union, which 
pays the cost of instruction, has appropriated 
the sum of $3,000 for the current year. In 
February, 1916, about 100 students were en- 
rolled, of whom approximately one- third were 
apprentices, and two-thirds journeymen. 

The course is undoubtedly the best yet de- 
vised for giving supplementary training to com- 
positors. It consists of 46 lessons in English, 
lettering, design, color harmony, job composi- 
tion, and imposition for machine and hand- 
folding. The particular subjects covered in the 
series are as follows : 

English, Punctuation, Capitalization 
Punctuation (3 lessons) 
Use of capital letters 
Proof-readers' marks and their meaning 
Type-faces and their use 
The question of spacing 
The use of decoration in typography 
The question of display 

Free-hand lettering 

Roman capitals in pencil 
Roman lower-case in pencil 
Italics in pencil 
Inking in Roman capitals 
87 



Inking in Roman lower-case 
Inking in Italic 
Gothic alphabets 
Making title page design 
Making cover page design 

Principles of design 
Balancing measures 
Proportion 
Shape harmony 
Tone harmony 

Preliminary sketches, or arrangement of 
lines and masses 

Principles of color harmony 
Color harmony (5 lessons) 

Every-day job composition 

Composition of letter-heads, bill-heads, 
business cards, envelope corner-cards, 
tickets, menus, programs, cover pages, 
title pages, and advertisements (10 les- 
sons) 

Hand-lettered advertisements 

Lay-outs of booklets and books (on paper 
and plates) 

Paper-making 

Plate-making of various kinds 

Imposition for machine and hand-folding 
Four and eight page forms 
Twelve and 16 page forms 
Twenty-four and 32 page forms 

88 



The work in English and free-hand lettering is 
optional. The classes are held at the head- 
quarters of the union. The course is confined to 
trade theory, the idea being that the student's 
daily practice in the shop provides plenty of 
opportunity for the acquisition of manual skill, 
and for this reason no apparatus or shop equip- 
ment is deemed necessary in connection with 
the course. 

Commendable as this work undoubtedly is, 
its shortcomings are apparent. It is at present 
available for none but compositors, and leaves 
altogether untouched the pressing problem of 
vocational training during the first three years 
of the apprenticeship term. The latter ob- 
jection is a serious one. The formative years 
from 16 to 18 are among the most important in 
the boy's life. If left to his own devices during 
this period, he is very likely to lose much of the 
vocational value of his earlier education, be- 
cause he does not grasp the relation which the 
knowledge he acquired in school bears to his 
daily work. As a result, the problem of in- 
struction at a later age becomes much more 
difficult than if this supplementary training had 
been more closely connected with his regular 
school training. 

From the standpoint of public education, 
vocational training for printing apprentices is 

89 



but one phase of the problem of training ap- 
prentices in all industries. Furthermore, the 
whole body of apprentices in the skilled trades 
is no more deserving of consideration than the 
army of young workers in semi-skilled occu- 
pations where there is no system of apprentice- 
ship. The present practice of losing track of 
15- and 16-year-old boys and girls who leave 
school and go to work represents an inadequate 
and defective educational policy. The law re- 
quires boys to attend school until the age of 15, 
when they attain what appears to be considered 
their educational majority, although in every 
other sense they are still children. As a matter 
of fact they are at this age as immature edu- 
cationally as they are physically. 

The vocational interests of young workers and 
the social interests of the community are both 
opposed to the current practice of " graduating" 
boys from the public schools at this early age 
and then losing sight of them. The fact that the 
large number who go into industrial occupations 
will not or cannot remain in school beyond 15 
or 16 does not absolve the school system from 
further responsibility for their educational wel- 
fare. There should not be a complete severance 
between the boy and the school, at least not 
until he has reached a relatively mature age. 
In other words, the school system should main- 

90 



tain, as long as possible, such a relation with him 
as will help to round out his education and keep 
open before him the vistas of future progress. 

The only practicable means for doing this lies 
in the compulsory continuation school. It avoids 
the difficulties which are responsible for the 
common failure of those schemes which depend 
for their success on the initiative of individuals 
or the voluntary cooperation of employers and 
trade unions. One very great advantage of the 
compulsory continuation school is that the 
principle on which it is based makes for equal 
justice to all. The decline of apprentice training 
in the shops is due largely to the fact that many 
employers have found that the expenditure of 
time and money involved largely goes towards 
providing a skilled labor force for competitors 
who make no effort to train young workers. 
The cooperation of employers on a compre- 
hensive scale will be secured only when the 
burden is equally shared by all. 

A compulsory continuation law, requiring 
school attendance a certain number of hours 
per week by all boys at work, up to the age of 
18, would make possible practical vocational 
training for nearly all the apprentices in the 
city during the first two years of their term of 
service. There are enough compositors' ap- 
prentices alone to form a class of from 60 to 80 

91 



boys. The total number of young workers of 
these ages in all branches of the industry prob- 
ably exceeds 200— a group sufficiently large to 
permit of specialized training for all the more 
important trades. 

Supplementary instruction for apprentices 
and for all young people at work is too big an 
undertaking to be conducted on the basis of 
single trades or single industries. Judging by 
past experience in this and other cities, the 
results that may be expected from the efforts 
of employers' associations, trade unions, private 
agencies, or night schools in which attendance 
is voluntary, are too small to constitute all 
together more than a fair beginning. A just and 
effective solution of this problem can be secured 
only through mandatory action that will reach 
every adolescent worker in every industry in 
the city. 

Journeymen 
The printing course now conducted in the 
technical night schools represents the only 
trade extension training for printers now given 
under public school auspices. Only three jour- 
neymen were enrolled during the second term 
of 1915-16. It must be admitted that the 
course offers little to men who have reached the 
grade of journeymen. Perhaps no better proof 

92 



of this is needed than the pitifully small enroll- 
ment as compared with the total number of 
journeymen printers employed in the city — ap- 
proximately 2,000. 

About two-thirds of the students enrolled in 
the evening classes conducted by the Typo- 
graphical Union are journeymen. The course 
is the same as for apprentices, but covers many 
points in trade theory with which the average 
workman is not acquainted. 

Night trade extension courses for the larger 
printing trades, adapted to the needs of journey- 
men workers, would undoubtedly attract a con- 
siderable number of the men employed in the 
industry. What they want is English, applied 
design, the principles of art, and trade physics 
and chemistry. They need the theory of print- 
ing rather than practice in type-setting or in the 
operation of small presses. This fact must be 
recognized before the night schools can hope 
to obtain more than the present negligible re- 
suits. Trade extension courses for journeymen 
printers are but one phase of the general problem 
of supplementary training for adult workers. 
When the school system is ready to undertake a 
comprehensive program of night school instruc- 
tion, the printing trades will be among the first 
to respond. 



93 



Summary 
The technical high schools offer evening courses 
in printing in which there are enrolled three 
journeymen printers, 11 apprentices, and eight 
" helpers." The courses offered are so meager, 
the work so largely typesetting, and the number 
of students so small, that these evening classes 
contribute but little toward the training of the 
hundreds of apprentices and thousands of jour- 
neymen in the industry in this city. 

Far more valuable and practical training is 
given in the evening courses maintained by the 
printers' union but these are mainly of value to 
compositors and are not open to beginners in 
the first three years of their apprenticeship. 

The most urgently needed reform in training 
for workers in the printing industry is the edu- 
cational bridging of the gap between the time 
when the boy gets his first job in a printing 
establishment at 15 or 16, and the time when 
he becomes a journeyman worker five years 
later. Especially during the first part of this 
period the school should furnish effective aid 
to the youthful citizen making the difficult 
transition from boyhood to manhood, from 
school-control to self-control, from home-sup- 
port to self-support, and from learning in the 
school to doing in the shop. This aid should be 



94 



given to all young workers as well as to those 
going into the printing industry. 

To attain these ends it is recommended that 
the Cleveland school authorities give their 
support to bring about the enactment of a 
compulsory continuation school law requiring 
school attendance for a certain number of hours 
a week by all boys and girls up to the age of 18 
who are at work. The training of these young 
workers is too important to be neglected. It 
cannot be comprehensively or satisfactorily done 
through volunteer effort. Neither can it be 
brought about by mere legal enactment. Courses 
of work, teachers, equipment, and, above all, 
able and enthusiastic leadership of a new sort 
and high quality will have to be provided. 
This will necessitate increased funds not now 
available. All of these requirements the city 
must meet if it is to develop a truly modern 
and adequate educational system. 

As a supplement to the compulsory continu- 
ation courses, elective ones for adult workers 
should be established in the evening schools. 
These must be far more comprehensive and 
much better taught than the present ones if 
they are to be of large practical value. 



95 



CLEVELAND EDUCATION SURVEY REPORTS 

These reports can be secured from the Survey Committee of 
the Cleveland Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio. They will be 
sent postpaid for 25 cents per volume with the exception 
of "Measuring the Work of the Public Schools" by Judd, 
"The Cleveland School Survey" by Ayres, and "Wage Earn- 
ing and Education" by Lutz. These three volumes will be 
sent for 50 cents each. All of these reports may be secured 
at the same rates from the Division of Education of the 
Russell Sage Foundation, New York City. 

* . Child Accounting in the Public Schools — Ayres. 

Educational Extension — Perry. 

Education through Recreation — Johnson. 
v Financing the Public Schools — Clark. 
v Health Work in the Public Schools — Ayres. 

Household Arts and School Lunches — Boughton. 
4 Measuring the Work of the Public Schools — Judd. 
tf Overcrowded Schools and the Platoon Plan — Hart- 
well. 
v School Buildings and Equipment — Ayres. 
y Schools and Classes for Exceptional Children — Mit- 
chell. 
^'School Organization and Administration — Ayres. 
^ The Public Library and the Public Schools — Ayres 

and McKinnie. 
v The School and the Immigrant. 
! The Teaching Staff — Jessup. 
^ What the Schools Teach and Might Teach— Bobbitt. 

The Cleveland School Survey (Summary) — Ayres. 



I/Boys and Girls in Commercial Work — Stevens. 
'/Department Store Occupations — O'Leary. 
V- Dressmaking and Millinery — Bryner. 
t' Railroad and Street Transportation — Fleming. 
v'The Building Trades — Shaw. 
■t The Garment Trades — Bryner. 
I The Metal Trades— Lutz. 
| The Printing Trades — Shaw. 
Wage Earning and Education (Summary) — Lutz. 



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